A Glass Castle
by clair-de-neptune
Summary: Queen Aurora remains frozen in place, staring at the east wall. It is easy to look at now, but how much harder will it be when it isn't stone, but glass?


The heavy throne room doors groan open, and the stone floor shivers as a draft rolls through. It is the middle of winter, and the Queen Aurora is dressed in her thickest robes that spill from her seat to the steps beneath her. Weak, cold light filters through the small windows that line the walls. The crown, equal of color, rests like ice on her head. Small hands, too childlike to lay on the armrests of such a grand seat, stay perfectly still as a guest is escorted in. The Queen Aurora looks, but does not speak.

The steward enters. He taps his carved staff on the floor three times, and each echo spears through the frigid air. "The Lady Protector, Maleficent," he announces, bows his head, and steps to the right.

Queen Aurora straightens her back and takes a deep breath.

Lady Maleficent's footfalls hardly make a sound as she sweeps in with methodical slowness, great wings lifted so not even her long flight feathers brush the ground. She stares past Queen Aurora, as if the throne before her was empty, and yet her features are schooled to be neutral. Queen Aurora knows better. The absence of warmth in her eyes says as much. _Cold like this bitter, winter day._

Lady Maleficent halts a good distance away from the throne, and remains silent. Queen Aurora considers her a moment with a tiny thing gnawing at her chest, and finally releases the breath she had been holding. "All are dismissed."

The steward and the guards give a quick bow, and take their leave. With a resounding finality, the double doors close with a jolting _boom,_ but neither of them move.

"I have answered your summons, Your Highness," Lady Maleficent says. It bites.

"And I thank you for that," Queen Aurora replies with a small smile. It does not meet her eyes. "It is an honor to be graced with your presence."

"Likewise, Your Highness, it has been far too long since I have been graced with yours."

Something in Queen Aurora's chest boils at this, contrasting violently with this harsh cold. It makes her feel like she's on fire and freezing at once. What is it? Frustration? Disbelief? Hatred? She glares hard at Lady Maleficent's sneering eyes, wanting nothing more than to rise and storm out of the room in fury, and to throw aside these years of ignored emotion bubbling from darker depths. But instead she takes a breath, imperceptible from her layers of clothing, exhales softly, and brushes it off. "Yes, well. Running a dilapidated kingdom has a tendency to keep one busy."

Seemingly unaffected that her attempt to get a visible rise out of Queen Aurora failed, Lady Maleficent hums. "And how goes things in the kingdom? Are your people well?"

It has been many years since Queen Aurora has seen Lady Maleficent, but she has not forgotten how Lady Maleficent conducts an argument: with a façade of politeness. And Queen Aurora does not have time for such an exhausting waste of energy. "They are. But I didn't bring you here for small talk on matters you don't care about." It is here she rises, gathering her great robes and walking with reserved grace to meet the Lady Protector. "I summoned you for a reason."

Lady Maleficent's face does not change. Not the slightest. And for reasons unknown to her, it makes Queen Aurora angry. That boiling feeling swells in her chest again, and with deep breaths she pushes it back down as they cross the room towards the left wall. It gets harder with each step, like trying to shrink a rolling ocean whose waves creep higher and higher against her sides before crashing down again, and all at once Queen Aurora feels like she is about to erupt, especially as Lady Maleficent takes long, even strides to keep with her, and Queen Aurora knows if she even dares— _dares_ to look, she will fall apart, claws and teeth gnashing.

By some miracle, Queen Aurora manages to keep herself together as she explains: she wants to tear down the east and west walls and replace them with enchanted glass, to open up the room and make it more enjoyable, so that morning and evening light can spill in, and so when she is tired and dulled from the demands of the royal court, she can look to the east and find...

"The Moors," Lady Maleficent finishes for her simply.

Every vein and artery freezes, and just like that Queen Aurora has turned to winter, seized up and cold as the stone in front of them. She hadn't meant to say that much. She doesn't even entertain the idea of hazarding a glance towards Lady Maleficent's direction, and yet her traitor eyes glance and her traitor face falls and her traitor arms come up to hug herself, and all that boiling hot she felt before sinks like cooled iron and settles in her gut. She should've known it would have turned out this way. Queen Aurora feels like a child again, sixteen and naive, believing that if she only put her mind to it—

"You haven't come to the Moors in quite some time." It isn't worded as a statement, it's so much more than that: a question, an accusation, a plea. Only Maleficent could make it so many things in one. And only Aurora could refuse to meet Maleficent's eyes, instead choosing to glue her gaze to the floor, hoping that if she only put her mind to it, everything would all disappear.

Her silence is her answer, just as her silence is not. It is a _I know_ , but not a _I am sorry;_ it is a _I am ashamed_ but not a _I will admit it._ Above all, her silence is her rebuttal, her hardheadedness that spits _I will not explain why._

In truth, Aurora knows why she hasn't visited Maleficent and the Moors, but she's buried it for so long that sometimes she forgets. That is what she tells herself, at least. In reality she has made excuses for it for so long that those excuses have become a sort of false truth, an acceptable answer that seems viable to her. And when she thinks of the right answer, the _true_ reason, Aurora considers it and thinks, _No, that can't be right_.

When she thinks Maleficent isn't paying attention, she risks a quick glance at her: she's staring somewhere far beyond the stone wall, and Aurora follows the slight knit of her brow to the slant of her eye, to the sharp cliff of her cheekbone and to the crease of her lips, and then down to her chest, where she takes slow, regular breaths, and her chest rises and falls evenly (a thing Aurora has practiced many times and that comes so naturally to Maleficent), and then it abruptly hitches and Aurora jolts because Maleficent is giving her a startled look and if Maleficent is startled then Aurora is terrified, terrified as she wills herself to melt stone and burn a hole through the floor, embarrassed and furious that she believed she could have such a peaceful moment to herself, if only she put her mind to it.

While occupied with the floor she closes her eyes for the briefest of moments and sees Maleficent's smile, full and free, sees the glint of mischief in her eyes and her determination, her power and her resolve, her quiet moments of unguardedness as she sleeps in the rowan tree, one arm hanging down lazily and a leg draped across its twin, feathers rustling softly like the leaves in the gentle wind, and Aurora thinks, trembling, _No, that can't be right._

Finally she opens her eyes, but does not look at Maleficent. It is easier, she finds, to look at the wall.

"Why haven't you returned?" Maleficent's question is not kind, nor is it harsh, but it's grating to Aurora's ears, because she _knows_ why, and she cannot on her life _say_ why.

"I don't know," she lies weakly.

"It's been fifteen years," Maleficent points out. A touch of empty melancholy colors her tone, the kind that Aurora knows and knows and _knows_ , and Aurora wants to cry. "That is a long time to not know, beastie."

Aurora grits her teeth and swallows back a sob. _Beastie._ It sounds rusty and askew on Maleficent's tongue and makes Aurora's bones ache for long, barefooted summer days with toes twined in grass and hands caked in mud, for sitting side-by-side with her legs crossed watching the sunset as the evening buzzed to life and the cool air settled on her sweaty skin. But those days are fifteen winters past and everything is welling up too fast and Maleficent needs to _leave._ "Can you enchant the glass or not?" Aurora barely manages to push the question through her teeth, and with a curt "yes" Lady Maleficent agrees to come back in the spring and then she's walking much quicker than when she came, and not one flight feather touches the floor as she exits, and with a wave of her hand the doors close with a resounding _slam_.

Queen Aurora remains frozen in place, staring at the east wall. It is easy to look at now, but how much harder will it be when it isn't stone, but glass?

In the summer, when the affairs of the royal court begin to wear at her nerves, she gazes to the east. The Moors are glowing with life and activity, even from this far away, and it is harder, she finds, to look through the wall.


End file.
